WWF to stand alone?

As far as wrestling news and speculation goes, this has been one heck of a
week. The Internet world was set on fire when WWF writer and booker Vince
Russo went to WCW, and when Radicalz Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Dean
Malenko, and Eddie Guerrero fled from WCW to the WWF. Now, WCW may very well
see its last day of operation before the month is done, and there are all
kinds of implications. Beware the Ides of March indeed.

It seems so grandiose, so massive on the scale of the typical news we report
and evaluate at SLAM!, that it's actually hard to bend my head around it.
One reason for that is that this isn't necessarily a done deal. There's
speculation, for example, that WCW's impending closure is a hoax, or a
publicity stunt prior to its sale to some investor or other. Other folks
think we'll see WCW again, only on Viacom stations as part of the WWF family
of wrestling. And to some, it is simply a time of mourning as a federation
with a fair bit of history, more than a few fans left, and the only means of
competing with the WWF on a national scale may shut its doors.

First, let's go over some of the facts. Fact: WCW has declared, live on the
air and behind the scenes to its employees, that the upcoming Nitro will be
the "season finale". What that means, exactly, isn't entirely clear, but it
sounds like a generous euphemism for "series finale". Fact: TNT and TBS have
canceled Nitro and Thunder, respectively. Some folks are suggesting that
this whole WCW-going-under thing is a big lie to draw attention to the
ailing promotion, but Time Warner executives have spoken out on the subject,
and I don't believe they'd allow themselves to be part of such a work.

Fact: Vince McMahon, owner of the WWF, announced on Howard Stern that he
would "in all likelihood" purchase WCW. WWF has been rumoured to be in the
running to purchase its competition for some time, now, but this is the
first real indication that it could really happen, and soon. Fact: If the
new is and was to be believed, then the WWF has had and will have problems
with Viacom as far as the WCW purchase is concerned. Viacom has the rights
to all WWF programming (or something to that effect), if I'm not mistaken,
and WWF purchasing WCW may very well qualify. Since WCW was until now firmly
entrenched on Time Warner networks, that was a big problem. Now it's not.

Fact: ECW has all but gone under, Paul Heyman is working for the WWF, and so
are Spike Dudley, Rhino, Justin Credible, and perhaps several others. Only
one nail remains to be hammered into ECW's coffin, and that's official
notice. It seems so far as if the WWF may pick up the pieces, and that may
or may not include access to the ECW name or the ECW video library. All this
to say that there's a convergence going on in the wrestling world, as the
business enters a downturn (less overall viewers per week this year than
2000 or 1999 or 1998) and only the strong survive. It would potentially make
sense for McMahon to also go after WCW, which may be worth more alive than
dead to him and the WWF. Aside from the potential for phony
cross-promotional events and keeping WCW alive as a barrier to entry to new
companies, the brand name alone might come in handy at some point – for the
right price.

Fact: When Vince McMahon took the WWF national close to two decades ago, it
seemed clear enough that he wanted to dominate the wrestling market in the
United States. He largely succeeded, but other large-ish wrestling entities
were formed to oppose him, namely WCW and ECW. McMahon spent years fighting
these entities with his WWF army, and it wasn't always a winning battle. But
now the war is all but over, and McMahon has to be happy. Fans and pundits
will talk about how a lack of competition may dull the edge on WWF
programming, and that may be true, but most definitely Vince McMahon is
unconcerned about that.

No, this has been McMahon's plan from the beginning. If it were his way, I'm
sure WCW would have folded long ago. A monopoly on arenas, a monopoly on
talent, and a monopoly on any fans who want to watch new wrestling. Of
course, when I simply mean that he'll be the only game in town, at least for
awhile. Others may rise to oppose him, but that will take time and success
is not guaranteed. I know with the way the business seems to be heading
lately, I would be apprehensive at best about starting a promotion. The WWF
name is entrenched in wrestling history, and the last of the organizations
that could say the same are all but dead. Unless things change, they soon
will be, and it will be an uphill battle for any new organization that wants
to compete with Vince McMahon's WWF, no matter how much money is behind
them.

Vince McMahon may be losing on the football field, but then again, football
hasn't been in his blood for more years than I've spent on this earth.
Wrestling has. Soon enough, McMahon's wish may come true.

The time may have come to turn off that wrestling faucet a little bit, maybe
de-saturate the market somewhat. Hopefully, WWF product won't become stale
without competition. Maybe Rupert Murdoch could start up a promotion.

Aaron Cowan, from aaron.cowan@home.com, writes
"Hey, I was wondering what you think of the way Canada is being represented
by wrestlers. It's obvious we are among the most respected nations in the
industry but isn't it odd that there hasn't been a solid main eventer from
Canada in some time (since Hart). Also every time a Canadian seems to be
near the main event level, his push always seems to fall apart. Examples of
this are Test, Jericho, Benoit, Storm, etc. I'm looking forward to your thoughts
Aaron Cowan, Cary, Toronto, Canada"

Hey Aaron from Toronto. Good line by Edge at the recent WWF Montreal event:
"Your Canadiens suck. At least Toronto can produce some good teams, like the
Maple Leafs And Edge and Christian."

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I disagree with you. You seem to be implying that
someone or something is holding back Canadian wrestlers. That may be, but I
don't think it's because they're Canadian. There aren't that many of them,
so let's go over them case by case:

Test -- Not a main event wrestler, never has been. Received a huge push over
a year ago, a push that was halted rapidly. I'm not sure why this was, and
don't take this as fact, but I did hear at some point that there were
problems with Test's attitude. That may or may not be true, but either way,
it seems unlikely to me that his 'Canadianness' had anything to do with it,
since he's not pushed as Canadian and I'm not sure most fans even know it.

Edge and Christian -- I think they will be main eventers soon. Give them
time.

Val Venis -- He was pushed to the moon, and he had his moment in the sun. I
don't think he necessarily made the most of it.

Lance Storm -- Lots of WCW guys with promise have been held back. That's a
WCW thing, not a Lance Storm thing or a Canada thing.

Chris Benoit -- Listen to fans during his matches. If anyone else were
pulling off his moves, they'd be much more applauded, in my opinion. Fans
don't react to Benoit quite enough in the WWF -- yet.

Chris Jericho -- Jericho has consistently been pushed by the WWF since being
hired. He took some time to adapt to their style, but I think ultimately has
come through nicely. Give him until the end of 2001, and if he's still not
gotten a shot, then I’d be willing to start considering conspiracy theories.

I don't think anyone's holding back Canadians for being Canadians. I mean
there must be at least a hundred wrestlers between the Big Two, but only
maybe ten bona fide main eventers. That's one tenth. Meanwhile, there are
certainly no more than ten or twelve Canadians. Considering their relative
positions -- both Benoit and Jericho have world titles to their name in the
WWF, however brief, and Edge and Christian have a lot of tag titles, too --
I’d say they're doing quite well.

I would agree, though, that perhaps they're not being pushed as Canadians so
much anymore (Lance Storm excepted), but that's a story for another time.

That's all for this week. Check back next week for another helping of the
same. Have a safe and happy weekend!